


Miles to Go

by exbex



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Gen, Summer Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 22:05:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11240184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex
Summary: Summer Solstice 2017 calendar entry





	Miles to Go

**Author's Note:**

> Summer Solstice 2017 calendar entry

The painting has sat, unfinished, for months.

It looks empty. Hutch keeps telling himself that that’s kind of the point of the winter landscape with a field of snow and a grove of trees in the background. He had had an English teacher in high school, Mr. Smith, who had worn blazers with elbow patches and required students to memorize poems. Years later, Hutch still remembers his favorite: Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.“

The woods are lovely, dark and deep…

It’s the line that Hutch has been trying to capture for months. Some interpret it as a longing for death, but Hutch has always seen it as an appreciation, an acknowledgment of something beautiful, however unknown its depths may be.

He gazes intently at the canvas, at the dark background and the evergreens trimmed with snow. It looks empty. He taps a finger on an unopened jar of paint; he’ll paint some stars perhaps, or the aurora borealis.

The darkest night of the year…

He puts the jar down. It feels like he’s straying away from the poem, to contemplate including so much light and color.

Hutch runs a hand over the back of his neck, feels the way his hair is sticking and curling. It’s the summer solstice, and the temperatures are climbing, hinting that the next three months will surely be scorching.

His mouth feels suddenly dry and it’s only partly due to the heat.

There’s a certain irony, Hutch thinks, to attributing darkness to death. When he closes his eyes and thinks about death, it’s always fully illuminated, red blood streaming into the street while the sun refuses to stop shining.

The phone’s ring jars him out of his thoughts. There’s a slight trembling in his hands as he picks up the receiver.

“Hutch. It’s the solstice. Ya know what that means.”

“It means that the sun’s not setting for hours, Starsk.”

“It means beer and barbecue.”

The trembling in his hands has stopped. He smiles. “It’s ten in the morning, Starsk,” he chides. I’ll be over within the hour, he thinks.

“Daylight’s a wastin’ Hutch,” and there’s a smirk in Starsky’s voice, the kind that’s always like a flash of color among shades of grey.

“Alright buddy, give me your list. I’ll pick everything up and be over soon.”

When Hutch has finished writing the list, his fingers are stained with blue ink. He doesn’t scrub it off.


End file.
